


Quadrangle

by Timjan



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Complicated Relationships, Crooked Exchange, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Forbidden Love, Good People Behaving Badly, M/M, Pining, Prompt Fill, Prompt Save America, White House Era (Crooked Media RPF), love quadrangle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-18 22:48:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17589896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Timjan/pseuds/Timjan
Summary: Tommy and Jon used to date during Obama's presidential campaign, and there's definitely some unfinished business left between them. When Lovett and Ronan meet, they share an instant connection.But Tommy's dating Ronan, and Lovett's dating Jon. Can this quadrangular equation be resolved?





	1. Degrees of Freedom

**Author's Note:**

  * For [justlikesomuch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justlikesomuch/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [psa_2018](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/psa_2018) collection. 



> This was written for a Prompt Save America prompt by justlikesomuch, which I quote at the end, to avoid spoilers.
> 
> As always, all the thanks to my beta [SelfRescuingPrincess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SelfRescuingPrincess/), who always makes my stories better (translating my Swenglish to actual English and seeing for me when I get "hemmablind"), but this time went above and beyond when I needed extra help with brain-storming and story structure! This story wouldn't be half as good without her deft hand. Also: Charts! <3
> 
> Please help keep this secret and safe. : )

**Tommy**

Jon smiles at Tommy as he opens the door. Tommy smiles back, automatic, and for a dizzy moment they’re still best buds, and Tommy’s coming over to hang out, maybe watch a game of some sort. Then, with a blink, the illusion is gone. He and Jon are exes, now, not even friends, and Tommy’s only here because Jon said they needed to talk about something. That has never happened before, so it’s really weird… and kinda worrying. In short, Tommy’s curiosity was piqued. (Or maybe he’s just never been able to say no to Jon. There’s that, too.)

“Tommy, hi,” Jon says, stepping aside so Tommy can enter. “Come in.”

Crossing the threshold to Jon’s apartment feels dangerous, like crossing a border into enemy territory. Like something might blow up in Tommy’s face if he takes a wrong step. He gingerly lifts his left foot and puts it down, and now he’s in Jon’s swanky apartment for the first time in almost a year. He hasn’t been here since he helped Jon pick it out, when they still thought they were gonna live here together. He hasn’t seen it since it became an actual home, and not just the promise of one. He looks around curiously, taking in framed photos of Obama and curtains that Lillian definitely chose for Jon.

“Do you want anything?” Jon asks over his shoulder, halfway to the kitchen. (He sounds so casual, but surely this must be affecting him too?) “A beer? Uh… a glass of water?”

“Water’s fine,” Tommy says. Whatever tonight is supposed to be, he’s not gonna get drunk on that old couch that Jon apparently  _still_ hasn’t given up on.

With Jon off in the kitchen, Tommy can snoop less surreptitiously. He leafs through a stack of papers on the dinner table, inspects the titles in Jon’s mostly barren book-shelf, checks out the fancy new TV. There’s nothing here that surprises Tommy. Jon’s still Jon. He hasn’t become a whole different person just because Tommy’s mostly out of his life.

Some things are new, of course. There are signs of Lovett everywhere, for one; Lovett’s messy handwriting all over the half-written speeches littering the room, Lovett’s least favorite tie thrown over the back of a chair at the dinner table, a crumpled Diet Coke can, forgotten in a corner. Next to the fancy TV hangs a photo of Jon, Lovett, Mark and Lillian smiling together in front of Jon’s childhood home. So, Jon came out to his parents at last. Good for him.

Tommy doesn’t interrogate how he feels about all this Lovett paraphernalia. He takes care not to remember Jon’s excitement after interviewing Lovett at the Penn. Ave. Starbucks, waltzing into lower press all “Seriously, Tommy, you’re gonna love him!”. He doesn’t think about the day – barely even a month later! – when Cody had sat him down and told him that Jon and Lovett had started dating, or how life at 1309, with Lovett as one of his roommates, had become living hell. For almost three months afterwards, Tommy spent all of his time at work and hardly even  _ate_ , genuinely afraid of puking from pure jealousy.

Tommy’s over it now, at least as long as he doesn’t think about it for more than three seconds. Really, he genuinely  _likes_  Lovett. The guy’s a fucking genius, and he makes Tommy laugh at least once a day, unless its one of those godforsaken days that he spends locked up in his windowless Lower Press office, fighting reporters over e-mail and phone, from the minute he arrives at work until its time to stumble home exhausted and fall into a fitful sleep. Lovett also has some serious  _je ne se quoi_ that Tommy envies in him. Tommy hates wearing suits too, but _he_ still shows up in one every day and hasn’t worn a nerdy tee to the White House even _once_. (He and Jon learned their lesson about Casual Fridays back in the senate.) And so what if it turns out that Jon didn’t need a rock, that apparently what he needed was someone to poke and prod him, to help him grow by challenging him, not just by being there with praise and attention. Those things only mean that Jon and Tommy would never have worked out anyway.

\---

When Jon comes back from the kitchen, carrying two glasses of water, Tommy’s looking out the window at Jon’s stunning view. Tommy turns back to the room, and watches Jon hover awkwardly between the dinner table and the couch. Tommy can’t help smirking, and Jon immediately breaks out into one of his gap-toothed dazzlers in reply.

“So where d’you wanna sit, then, Tom?” he laughs, breaking some of the tension.

That’s just not fair. It makes Tommy miss his best friend  _intensely_ , even with Jon standing right in front of him. (He misses having Jon as his boyfriend  _more_ , but still.) Tommy says nothing about the nickname, he just steps over to the dinner table, pulls out a chair. Jon puts one of the glasses of water down before him and sits down as well. He picks the chair with Lovett’s tie slung over it, Tommy notices.

They sit in awkward silence for a moment, regarding each other. Tommy hasn’t truly  _looked_ at Jon in ages. He looks great, of course; mostly just the same as back when he was Tommy’s, only he has a better haircut now. Lovett’s good influence, Tommy thinks bitterly.

 _Fuck_ , Tommy thinks,  _might as well get this over with_. Unconsciously he straightens his back, before asking, “So, what is this about, Favs?”

The last traces of Jon’s smile slip off his face. He takes a sip from his glass – stalling for time? – and slowly licks his lips. Tommy’s almost 100% sure he did that completely unconsciously and  _fuck_ , that only makes it hotter.

“So, er, your boyfriend…” Jon begins, trailing off awkwardly before he’s even really started. He takes another sip of water.

Tommy keeps his face and his mind blank, refusing to speculate about where the hell this might be going. “This is about Ronan?” he asks, and a little bit of his surprise slips out against his will. He’s sure Jon can hear it there.

“Yeah, um.” Jon shuts eyes for a second and takes a deep breath, before looking back at Tommy again. “Lovett says Ronan was hitting on him at some gay bar last weekend.”

 

**Lovett, three days earlier**

Jon is running late, but Lovett hasn’t quite gotten annoyed yet. They’re supposed to meet up with their gay friends – well, they’re really mostly  _Lovett’s_ gay friends, but Jon is everybody’s pal – at Trade later, but Lovett suggested that they them should grab a few drinks at Number Nine first, just the two of them. So now he’s waiting alone at the bar, perched precariously up on a barstool. He’s one Tequila Sunrise in, and playing at being someone else. This isn’t one of Lovett’s usual haunts, so he could be anyone, here; a media mogul dipping his toes into the Swamp for some high-level lobbying, or a famous screenwriter-slash-director looking for inspiration for his new movie about, say… closeted political aides.

Lovett is toying with the idea of going up to someone and offering them a drink, just to remind himself that he still can, just to see Jon’s outraged smile when he shows up and Lovett’s flirting with some rando. Just to watch Jon magically charm the dude into coming along with them to hang out with their friends, even as the poor hypothetical guy just learned that his prospective lay has a boyfriend. But no: for tonight, Lovett decides to just keep his role playing to his own head, and instead begins to anticipate Jon showing up and drawing the eyes of every horny guy in the whole establishment, before he saunters up to Lovett and shows everyone who he’s chosen.

Lovett wants to stay lost in his happy anticipation, but he can’t help catching a few strands of an annoying conversation from a little further down the bar: “Obama said he was pulling out of Afghanistan, and he hasn’t even made a fucking gesture at withdrawal. I’m just sayin’, if someone I was fuckin’ said he’d pull out and then didn’t…” someone says in a smug, affected voice.

Lovett turns towards the voice and gets a view of the back of a dark-haired head. Then he peers over the guy’s shoulder, catching the gaze of the blond man he’s talking to – and holy  _shit_ , he is  _smokin’_. The haircut’s not great but the lips are  _to die for_. And the eyes… meeting them is like a jolt of electricity shooting their blue down Lovett’s spine.

The D.C. gay scene is just large enough to not be called incestuous, so Lovett’s not surprised that he doesn’t know about each and every twink or bear that passes through the nation’s capital, but this Adonis in the flesh  _should_ be the talk of the town. Why hasn’t Lovett heard about him? Who is he? What agency does he work for? Think tank maybe? Well, never mind that right now. The guy might be hot, and he might look a little taken aback at what is companion is saying (or maybe Lovett’s just projecting), but he’s just smiling politely, and a comment that idiotic just  _can’t_ be allowed to go unanswered. Lovett hates talking to strangers, but we all have a responsibility when it comes to fighting ignorance.

Lovett walks over so he’s standing between the two guys and clears his throat. “I just  _couldn’t_  help overhearing,” he says, falling naturally into his stand-up voice; this is gonna be a performance.

The two men turn towards him, clearly surprised. Lovett turns to the dark-haired one, who’s not nearly hot enough to be allowed to be the blond Adonis’ date, in Lovett’s humble opinion.

“I’m curious,” Lovett goes on, “do you perchance work at the State Department? The Defense Department? I mean, since you seem to know with 100% surety what the President is or isn’t doing concerning Afghanistan.”

“Uhh, what?” the guy asks intelligently. “That’s not… I was just saying that Obama isn’t telling the public about what he’s gonna do…”

“Oh, so you didn’t listen to the President’s speech back in March, then, I take it?” Lovett shoots back. Is he imagining the amused twinkle in Adonis’ eye?

Before the dark-haired guy has time to reply, Lovett launches into a real rant, rattling off references to speeches, policy documents, and campaign promises. It feels  _great_ ; a little more of the last few days’ stress melting off him with every word. He goes on for at least a few minutes, the dark-haired dude staring at him in more and more slack-jawed fury. Adonis, for his part, has broken out into a real smile, all plump lips and white teeth, replacing the blandly polite one from before. Lovett has to keep his eyes away from it, or he’ll lose the thread.

“So in conclusion, I think we can agree that it is you, and not the American people, who’re not paying attention to the President’s plans for Afghanistan. If you want to remedy that, you can tune in Tuesday, December 1!” Lovett finishes, with a flourish of his hands.

Their little stretch of the bar is silent for a moment. Then the dark-haired man turns back towards his date. “Can you believe this guy?” he mutters darkly.

The blond Adonis purses his full lips in a faux considering face. “I  _can_ , actually,” he drawls. “He seems very believable.”

Adonis catches Lovett’s gaze again, silently inviting him to enjoy his word-play. Lovett does. Adonis’ date, on the other hand, is not enjoying this at all. He leaves in a huff, and Lovett takes his seat on the barstool. Adonis slowly looks Lovett up and down with lidded eyes. Once his heavy gaze has travelled back to Lovett’s face he blinks slowly. Lovett shudders. He knows he’s  _not_ an Adonis-in-the-flesh himself, but he  _did_  just deliver a very impressive rant, if he gets to say so himself. Maybe he could actually have had a shot with this guy, if he had been in a position to try for it.

“My savior,” Adonis says, a deliciously teasing lilt to his voice. “That was amazing. Can I buy you a drink?”

An ugly, selfish, flattered part of Lovett wants to say yes, wants to see where this could go. He squashes it down. “Ah, I’m actually waiting for someone,” he says, apologetic. “Uh. For my boyfriend.”

“Ah.” After a moment’s hesitation, Adonis reaches out his right hand, and this time Lovett takes the offer. “That was still amazing,” Adonis says as they shake. “I’d be happy to get to know you better, even if… drinks… are off the table. I’m Ronan.”

 _Oh, fuck_. The realization hits Lovett like a brick. Because how many gay men named ‘Ronan’ can there be in D.C.? Not many, Lovett guesses. It’s pretty common D.C. Gay Protocol to only give your first name at an introduction, but if Lovett’s hunch is right, this guy has more reason than most to keep mum about his last name. And oh, yes, this also means that  _of course_ Lovett had already heard about this god among gay men.

“Jon,” Lovett says, only giving his first name as well. It feels weird – ‘Jon’ is, well,  _Jon_ to him these days – but if this is who Lovett thinks it is, he has probably heard of ‘Lovett,’ and Lovett wants to buy time until he can decide how to handle this situation.

Serendipitously, this is the moment that Jon finally appears in the doorway to the bar. Lovett jumps off his barstool with a “Gotta go, sorry,” and rushes off to drag his boyfriend back out the door.

 

 **Tommy, still three days later**  

Tommy winces. “Fuck, that was Lovett!?”

In hindsight, Tommy can’t believe that he didn’t pick up on this from Ro’s description of “the super hot guy who scared off my annoying Grindr date.” Tommy has just never thought about Lovett as ‘super hot,’ he supposes. Though Lovett’s not  _not_ hot, now that he thinks about it…

Jon is staring at him in disbelief across the table, Tommy notices. “Also, ‘some gay bar,’ really, Favs?” he adds, stalling for time before he has to grab this conversation by the horns. “Are you really gonna pretend like you don’t know the name of each and every establishment that caters to our clientele in this town?”

Jon laughs, startled and sheepish. “Okay, yeah, it was at Number Nine, happy now?” he says. “But it sounds like you… already knew that?”

“I did. Ronan told me about trying to pick someone up, there. We, uh, have an understanding.” Wow, that sounded dumb. “I mean, we’re not exclusive.”

Jon’s face goes blank, his mouth falling slightly open. He seems at a complete loss for words, and for one prolonged, very awkward moment, they just sit in silence. They take turns to sip their water just for something to do with their hands, and don’t look at each other except for quick probing glances, there and away.

“So, not exclusive, huh?” Jon echoes at last, catching Tommy’s eye for real. “That’s, uh...” He hesitates, clearly looking for the right words like he always used to do (probably still does!) when working on a speech. “Doesn’t sound like you, man,” he finishes, carefully.

Tommy laughs, a short, hard chuckle without humor, startled out of him. No shit, that doesn’t sound like the Tommy Jon knew. It was different, then. And Tommy shouldn’t poke at that, probably, but what he hell, it’s not like he has anything left to lose.

“Well, I guess I don’t wanna fully commit to someone until I feel the way I felt about you.” There, he said it. Tommy’s surprised by how free he feels with those words off his chest. A dangerous feeling, that; it’s apt to tempt him to reveal even more, to spill all his beans out over Jon’s dinner table. Apt to tempt him to disturb the delicate equilibrium between them, to fuck up every chance of him ever rebuilding a friendship with Jon.

Jon just looks at him for a moment. Stunned. Then… “Until you feel the way…  _you_  broke up with  _me_ , Tom!”

God, Tommy wishes Jon would stop calling him ‘Tom.’ “Yeah, and it was a fucking mistake,” he mutters, before he really knows what he’s saying.

“A mis-… What the fuck, Tommy?!” Jon’s voice is suddenly twice as loud as it was a moment ago – a surefire sign that he’s getting riled up, in one way or another. He shoots up from his chair, Lovett’s tie falling to the floor as he goes, and now he’s staring down at Tommy, eyes dark with anger.

Tommy avoids his gaze, looks at Jon’s white-knuckled grip around the table’s edge instead. “Sorry,” he mumbles, getting up from his own chair. “I should go. Coming here today was a mistake, too…”

“Uh, no!” Jon thunders. “Nope! You don’t get to say something like that and then just up and leave.”

Tommy sighs. He turns back to face Jon fully. “What do you want me to say, Favs?” he asks, spreading his arms. He’s getting riled up himself, now. “That whenever POTUS gives a speech I still listen for you in his words? That I can hear you every time he speaks? That I can never get away from you, because your fingerprints are fucking  _everywhere_  in that building?”

“Fuck you, Tommy, don’t condescend me!” Jon is almost vibrating with anger, now. “If you’re gonna be like that, I changed my mind: you  _can_ just leave!”

“I’m not conde-… that was the  _truth_ , Jon.”

“Okay. Sure. But let me just remind you that y _ou_ broke up with  _me_!”

“Did I, Jon? Did I?” Tommy is getting truly angry too now, raising his voice to match Jon’s. “If you remember, I said I thought we were moving too quick, that I needed a break, and  _you_ decided that meant we were done forever! And you know what? I  _still_ hoped we might get back together! I never imagined that you’d get right on finding a new best friend to turn into your boyfriend! In like a month!”

Tommy winces, surprised at himself. He probably crossed a line, there. Jon seems to think so too; suddenly there’s a mean glint in his narrowed eyes that Tommy has never seen before. It doesn’t fit there, looks alien in a face made for sunny smiles and wonder.

“Funny how you couldn’t imagine someone moving from partner to partner quickly,” Jon hisses. “Y’know, what with Katie and all.”

Tommy breathes through the first explosion of rage. It’s true that he’d broken up with Katie to be with Jon; he’d been daydreaming about calling Katie his wife, and then two weeks later he was daydreaming about calling Jon his husband. They really  _had_ been moving too fast – an actual whirlwind romance! And then it ended, and Tommy had no girlfriend, no boyfriend, and no best friend… and no one to blame but himself. It’s the worst mistake of Tommy’s life, and now he’s rehashing it in the worst way possible.

“That was a low blow,” Tommy says calmly, once he can speak calmly. Then, still calm, but with bite: “So fuck you, Jon.”

Jon must see something in Tommy’s face that tells him that Tommy’s truly hurt, and he immediately softens; he really wasn’t made for anger, can never stay mad for long. “I’m sorry,” he says. “You’re right, that was uncalled for.”

“I’m sorry too, Favs,” Tommy begins, because he too had really been unnecessarily harsh. When he and Jon were together, everything was so intense all the time – high highs and low lows – and it’s easy to fall into old patterns. (And now there isn’t even the promise of make up sex!) “The one good thing about not being with you is that we don’t fight anymore, so this is really dumb.”

Jon’s laugh is only a little forced. When it has rung out, he leans back against the wall behind him. After a few moments, Tommy draws out his chair and sits down again, and then they just look at each other in silence for a while; at least they can look at each other without having to look away every three seconds, now.

“But Tommy…” Jon says after a while, trailing off like he’s already regretting what he’s about to say.

“Yeah, what?”

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“You were dating someone else! You  _are_ dating someone else! Why were  _you_ so keen on breaking up for real when I just wanted a break?”

Jon looks away and swallows, then he swallows again. He reaches for his glass on the table, empties it and starts to twirl it in his hands. He looks like he very much doesn’t want to answer Tommy’s question, but then he suddenly speaks.

“When you… when you did your whole prepared speech about why us being together was such a horrible idea – that’s what I heard, anyway – you said, ‘I left the woman I thought I was gonna marry to be with you.’” Jon’s voice is monotone, but he delivers the quote as if he remembers it verbatim, as if he has repeated the words over and over in his head in the months – almost a year, now – since Tommy first spoke them. His voice breaks as he goes on. “Like I had… like I fucking…  _seduced_  you away from the life you were meant to have… and now you’d come back to your senses and wanted out.”

 _What the fuck!?_  That wasn’t at all what Tommy had… “Yeah,” Tommy says, a little heated. “Yeah, I said that. And it meant that, by then, I thought I was gonna marry  _you_. It was just going  _so fast_  and I felt like I was losing my bearings. I mean, really, Jon – who the hell leaves someone they thought might be the love of their life for some fling!?”

“Oh.”


	2. Two Times Temptation

**Lovett, two weeks later**

There’s a knock – and in a jaunty little rhythm at that – on the 1309 door, the one that faces onto the garden entrance. That’s… unusual. Lovett’s in the living-room, less than five feet from the door, so he can’t pretend he hasn’t heard. He’s also home alone, so if he doesn’t get it, no one else will.

The blinds are down over the door window, so Lovett can’t see from the couch who’s outside, but it’s probably just Mrs. Wesolek from across the street who wants to borrow a cup of sugar or something – Lovett can’t think about anyone else who’d show up unannounced, anyway – but he supposes that it  _might_  be something important. With an annoyed sigh he pauses his video game and gets up.

Lovett twists the blinds open and finds himself face to face with _Ronan fucking Farrow_ : Adonis in the flesh, State Department Wunderkind, and boyfriend of Lovett’s favorite roommate. He looks great, of course (and Lovett’s in his rattiest pair of sweat-pants, so that’s great). Even Ronan’s hair looks good today; he hasn’t done whatever disastrous styling to it that he had the first time Lovett saw him, so it’s just there, on his head. Not a revelation, but not a catastrophe either. And the rest of him… well, the less thought of that, the better.

 _Fuck._  What the hell is Ronan doing here when Tommy is still at work? It makes no sense, but on another level it makes  _perfect_ sense.  _Of course_ Ronan shows up out of nowhere on one of the vanishingly rare occasions that Lovett’s home alone at 1309 (company is almost a given when one has three roommates who all work at the same place, and therefore basically the same hours). Of  _course_  that _has_ to happen.

Ronan gives a little dorky wave through the blinds’ slats and the wrought iron bars on the security door, and Lovett rolls his eyes as he opens the door.

“Ronan,” he says. “Hi. Tommy’s not home.”

“Ah. I suspected as much; he hasn’t answered my calls.” Ronan lifts his hand, holding his phone, and wiggles it around a little. “But we said we’d meet up here so I thought I might as well try. May I come in?”

Lovett pretends he doesn’t hear the amusement in Ronan’s voice. “Yeah, of course.” Ronan steps back as Lovett opens the iron door for him too. “I have no idea what kind of PR mess Tommy’s gotten held up by today, but you’re welcome to wait here as long as you want, of course. So, uh…”

Lovett has no idea what to say or do next. He can’t keep looking into the piercing blueness of Ronan’s eyes, though, so he takes a step back into the living-room. Ronan follows, politely closing both doors behind him, and now they’re alone together in an otherwise empty house. That’s fine. That’s great.

Tommy has brought Ronan along to hang out with his friends a few times by now, but Lovett has kept his distance on those occasions, so he and Ronan haven’t really talked to each other since that time at the bar. They will have to talk now, though; the awkwardness of the silence that is starting to stretch out between them is already absolutely  _palpable_.

“Are you hungry?” Lovett asks at last. “I’ve been thinking about ordering pizza.”

“Ah, well… Tommy and I were planning to eat out,” Ronan replies. He sounds a little flustered. “So I think I’m gonna give him a chance to show up before I go changing plans on him.”

“That makes sense,” Lovett says. This conversation is stupid. They’re standing around two feet from the door, in a room that has two  _very_  comfortable couches and one arm chair. The whole  _situation_ is stupid.

“Um,” Ronan says after another long moment of dumb, dumb silence. “So… what were you doing before I interrupted your precious free time?”

Lovett glances towards the TV, the screen showing one of those fancy-ass black and white  _Arkham Asylum_ pause screens.

“Ah,” says Ronan, following Lovett’s gaze. “Oh, that’s the cool new Batman game, isn’t it? I haven’t had time to try it out yet, but I’ve heard so many good things!”

“You’re a gamer?” Lovett asks dumbly. How fucking perfect is this guy? What did Lovett ever do to deserve this torment? This is  _ridiculous_.

“Yes,” Ronan replies. “Does it surprise you? Some people are surprised.”

Lovett considers for a moment.  _Is_  he surprised? The Ronan that Lovett met at the bar could perhaps have seemed too suave to be a geek, but the guy that gave Lovett a dorky wave from the other side of a closed door might not. Plus, Ronan’s pretty young. Don’t most people his age play video games? Besides, from what Lovett already knows about him, Ronan could tell him that he used to be an astronaut, and Lovett would probably just accept that as well.

“No, not really,” he decides. Then, because he wasn’t raised in a barn: “Do you want to try it out?”

Ronan  _does_ look a little tempted (and g-d, can Lovett sympathize with that feeling right now), but he says, “Nah, I don’t want to disturb your circles. I would be happy just to watch you play.”

Lovett gives him a skeptical look.

“No, really,” Ronan insists. “I have twelve siblings; I’m perfectly capable of getting my own enjoyment out of watching someone else play a video game.”

So that’s decided, then. Lovett jumps back onto the closest couch, and picks up the controller. He then makes a conscious effort to concentrate on what’s happening on the screen, instead of, for example, which couch Ronan decides to sit on (the same as Lovett) and how close (not  _that_ close, but not  _that_ far away either).

They’re silent for a while, as Batman kicks away the bars from a ventilation shaft and climbs through to drop down on two unsuspecting Arkham inmates. But then, as Bruce Wayne kicks, batarangs and punches his way through the asylum population, conversation starts flowing more smoothly between them. It’s a  _lot_ easier to talk to Ronan when he doesn’t have to look at him, Lovett finds, and the game provides them with non-dangerous topics to discuss. They end up talking about comic books, and then the respective merits of Mark Hamill’s versus Heath Ledger’s Joker, and then Brokeback Mountain. Then they fall silent to watch a cut scene, and then it’s time for a boss fight.

It takes Lovett two attempts to defeat Dr. Octopus-Hulk-Bane, and he only manages it on the second try thanks to a well-timed “On your left!” from Ronan. Once Batman stands victorious, both Lovett and Ronan are breathing fast from the adrenaline. Lovett pauses the game.

“Holy moly, that was intense,” Ronan pants, his voice higher than Lovett has heard it go before.

“Did you just say ‘ _holy moly_ ’...!?” Lovett exclaims, laughing incredulously.

“…yes?”

“Wow, you’re a dork!” Lovett says before he can stop himself, but at least he manages to keep from adding ‘It’s cute,’ out loud. It echoes around his head all the same.

“I am, it is true,” Ronan admits with a wide smile that Lovett has to look away from. (He thinks of Jon’s smile instead, conjures it up in his mind’s eye in all its gap-toothed glory. It helps a little.)

Once they’ve both calmed down for real, Ronan says, “So, by the by, when we first met I thought your name was John-with-an-‘h,’ but Tommy tells me it’s actually ‘Jonathan.’ Why do you shorten it?”

“Um,” Lovett stalls. Why  _does_ he shorten his name? “I guess it just sort of happened when I was a kid? And, uh, ‘Jon Lovett’ rolls off the tongue well, I think. And really, I mostly go by ‘Lovett’ anyway so it’s kind of a moot point.”

“I see,” Ronan says, looking pensive. “‘Jonathan’ is a lovely name, though. If I was called ‘Jonathan’ I would not shorten it. But I like using people’s full names in general.”

“You call Tommy ‘Tommy,’” Lovett points out.

“Well, yes,” Ronan concedes, with an inclination of his golden head and a smirk. “He trained me out of trying to call him ‘Thomas’ by genuinely never ever responding to it.”

Lovett laughs. And then, even though this feels like potentially dangerous ground, he says, “Well, speaking of names… I googled you, after we met at Number Nine.”

Ronan’s eyebrows first shoot up, and then draw together in slight concern.

“That could make anyone feel inadequate, googling you,” Lovett continues quickly, forestalling any attempt from Ronan to interrupt. “I thought Jon’s level of boy wonder-ness was bad enough, but  _whew_. Anyway, I also found out that your real first name is ‘Satchel,’ so I don’t think you’re in any position to criticize other people’s names.”

Ronan’s eyebrows go back to their ‘up’ position, and he laughs a relieved laugh. “You know,” he says, “I’m not sure what I should be more annoyed with my mother for: naming me after a kind of bag or being famous enough that people can easily find out about it.”

Lovett laughs again. Then he picks the controller back up, and as Batman start making his way to the Arkham Island Batcave, Lovett and Ronan start swapping embarrassing stories about their mothers. (And Lovett tries not to geek out too hard about hearing intimate details from the life of  _screen legend Mia Farrow_!) Once they have run out of mom-stories they’re quiet for a while, and now their silence is comfortable and companionable. Then Ronan clears his throat.

“So,” he begins, with a certain light quiver in his voice that’s badly covered by his affected nonchalance, “I hear you’re dating your boss. That seems… potentially messy.”

Lovett is so surprised by this sudden turn of the conversation that Batman accidentally throws a Batarang right in Commissioner Gordon’s face. Lovett, self-conscious, drops the controller again, and shrugs.

“Jon’s worth it,” he says, thinking of Jon’s lovely pianist fingers, his starry-eyed zeal, his beautiful speeches, all heart  _and_ brain. “And I mean, this is D.C..  _Everything_  is ‘potentially messy’ here. Unless it’s  _already_ messy!”

Ronan laughs. “That is true enough,” he says. “It drives me nuts, all the underhanded shit that goes on here, all the misuse of power. I can’t sleep, sometimes, thinking about it. There are days that I just want to shout for all the world to hear about it all…”

“Sounds like you’re in the wrong place.”

“Or the right place! Washington needs idealists, don’t you think?”

 _Jon’s_ an idealist. Lovett’s quite a bit of an idealist himself, if he’s being honest, though when he doesn’t sleep through the night it’s usually because of his own bad decisions, not because he’s feeling the weight of the world, or whatever. “Sure,” Lovett says, looking at the screen, where Batman’s just standing now, with his ridiculously muscled body and his broody cape.

This isn’t Ronan flirting with him, Lovett doesn’t think, but the memory of them flirting at the bar hangs over him like a physical presence. It reaches long fingers into his ribcage and squeezes at his lungs. Lovett shakes himself, and picks the controller back up without looking at Ronan. But Batman barely has time to take a step before they hear a key in the kitchen entrance lock.

 _Please, let it be Tommy_ , Lovett thinks. It’s not that he’s not enjoying this little tête-à-tête with Ronan, now that they’ve moved past the initial awkwardness. Rather the other way around; Lovett is enjoying this too much. The words ‘not exclusive’ keep bouncing alluringly through his brain, but  _his_ relationship is not open. So it’d probably be good if Tommy showed up to whisk the agent of Lovett’s temptation away.

The door opens, and Cody’s voice yells out a “Hullo? Anyone home?”

Oh, well, Cody’s better than nothing, Lovett supposes. He twists around on the couch and waves at his roommate. Next to him, Ronan follows suit.

“Hello, Cody,” Ronan says.

“Oh, hi there, Ronan!” Cody replies, making his way towards the couches. “What have you done with Tommy?”

“I was going to ask if _you_ knew where he was, in fact,” Ronan replies. “Jonathan here has been baby-sitting me for a while, but if Tommy doesn’t show up soon I guess I will just go home again.”

Cody raises his eyebrows at ‘Jonathan,’ but he doesn’t say anything about it, just asks, “So, what have you two been doing, then?”

Cody’s outraged when he learns that Lovett hasn’t let Ronan play, even as Ronan insists that it’s fine. “How are you at Mario Kart?” he asks, in his don’t-trifle-with-me voice.

“Terrible!” Ronan gleefully exclaims, his eyes lighting up.

Lovett laughs. “Alright,” he says. “Okay. I get it, I’m a terrible host  _and_  I’ve been overruled. Dibs on Yoshi!”

\---

When Tommy finally arrives home, it’s to an impromptu Mario Kart tournament between Lovett, Ronan, Cody, Mike, and Mike’s girlfriend Sandra. There are empty pizza boxes all over the floor, mixed together with cans of beer and diet coke.

“Sorry I couldn’t make the party,” Tommy says, wry.

Ronan gets up from where he’s sitting – almost pressed against Lovett, by now – and goes over to kiss Tommy hello. “Hey, babe,” he says once the kiss is over, delight in his voice.

Something in the way Ronan uses the endearment makes Lovett’s heart clench. It’s like he’s rejoicing in getting to say it; like he’s newly out, or hasn’t dated much. He  _is_ pretty young, Lovett supposes. In any case, it’s endearing. And enviable.  _Dammit._

 

**Lovett, another two weeks later**

There’s a party at another Obama bro group home, and as always everybody’s invited. Lovett’s there mostly because he feels he  _should_ be, and with Jon staying home to avoid Tommy he does not expect to enjoy himself much. (He thought Jon had gotten over his ‘avoiding Tommy’ phase, but last month’s botched intervention has brought it back in full force.) Thus far, the party is loud and full of straights. There’s not even a SingStar game on, or a dog to pet.

Lovett wanders into the living-room, in search of someone he knows, who hasn’t yet devolved into their worst party self. As soon as he enters, he has to dodge a fucking stray ping pong ball from the impromptu  _beer pong tournament_ that’s apparently going on in here. _Jesus, fuck._ If Lovett’s gonna withstand this nonsense, he’ll have to get a lot drunker than he had calculated for. He wishes Jon was here, so he takes out his phone to snap a picture of the beer pong players.

 _‘You’re missing out,’_  he types out, and sends the MMS over to his boyfriend.

 _‘You know I actually LIKE drinking games, right?’_ Jon texts back. And then, a second message following shortly on the heels of the first, _‘You could always come over and resume your project of “curing my cinema illiteracy” tho. <3’_

Lovett seriously considers taking him up on that offer.

_‘Nah,’ he reluctantly decides. ‘I’m trying this thing where I’m less of a quitter remember?’_

_‘You do you… the offer still stands. Love u!’_

Determined to make the best of the situation, Lovett appropriates some sort of vodka drink from Cody, who suffers the theft with a huge grin and a “Whoop!”. Then he tries to drag Lovett along to play flip cup, which,  _absolutely not_. Instead Lovett sneaks off with his drink towards the kitchen.

The kitchen, it turns out, is empty of people, but full of empty bottles and beer cans. Well,  _almost_  empty of people. It takes a moment for Lovett to notice him, but in a corner of the room, seated on some kind of cozy kitchen bench and looking down at his phone, sits  _Ronan g-ddamned Farrow_. Of fucking course. Lovett had been prepared for Ronan being at the party, obviously, but he hadn’t planned on spending any time with him one-on-one. Lovett’s just about to turn on his heels and leave when Ronan notices him back.

“Oh, hi, Jonathan,” he says with one of his angelic smiles. “Are you perchance hiding too?”

 _Abort! Abort!_  Lovett’s self-preservation instinct yells, blinking red in a corner of his brain. _Nah, don’t worry, man, this is gonna be fiiine_ , the vodka drink counters, and Lovett’s much ignored sense of social grace joins in, adding  _Besides, it’d be weird to leave now!_

Lovett gives in so hard that he, without quite letting himself realize how it happens, soon finds himself curled up next to Ronan on the kitchen bench thingy. Ronan puts his phone away and clinks a beer can against Lovett’s glass. “Welcome to the Gay Introvert Corner,” he smiles.

Lovett’s pretty sure he  _means_ to say ‘Thanks,’ but what comes out of his mouth is a vaguely accusatory, “So what have you done with Tommy _this_ time?”

Ronan quirks an eyebrow, purses his lips, and holds Lovett’s gaze for a moment too long, like he’s looking for something in Lovett’s eyes that Lovett’s pretty sure he doesn’t want him to find. Hanging out with Ronan was meant to be a buffer from the rest of the party, but maybe what Lovett needs now is a buffer from Ronan? He wishes Jon was here. And now he can’t even text him without it being rude.

“He abandoned me to play flip cup with some other overgrown frat bros,” Ronan replies at last, his voice full of mock betrayal (and also a certain sharpness that Lovett would have thought him too polite for, but really enjoys now that it’s there).

Lovett laughs, startled by Ronan’s mean edge, and before he has time to volley something clever-and-mean back, Ronan speaks again. “What have  _you_ done with Favreau? I thought I’d finally get to meet the speechwriter-prodigy-slash-presidential-mind-reader that I’ve heard so much about.”

Lovett’s wrong-footed by the question, and possibly a bit from the alcohol, too, now that he thinks about it. The drink in his hand is way too pink to be the vodka tonic he stole from Cody, and there’s a slight buzz along his cheek bones that makes him feel electrically alive and only has a little to do with Ronan’s blue eyes.

“Ah, he couldn’t make it,” Lovett hedges, “so you’ll have to do with me. I’m a presidential speechwriter too, you know. Not a mind-reader, though. But definitely the prodigy part!”

“Ah, yes, I  _do_ know that,” Ronan concedes with an indulgent smile. “I hear you’re the funny one!”

“Oh, it’s all the subject matter,” Lovett replies, re-using old material to try to live up to Ronan’s covert challenge. “Climate change, civil unions, corn crops – the jokes basically write themselves!”

Ronan seems less indulgent, now; he doesn’t even reward that with a chuckle. Lovett vows to do better.

“I was a speechwriter for a while, actually,” Ronan muses, again before Lovett has time to come up with anything new to say. “I was not particularly good at it, but I liked getting to care about and talk about a little bit of everything. In my job now, I only get to care about one subject and, outside of work, I don’t get to talk about it at all.”

“Ah, yeah, the Afghanistan stuff, right?” Lovett laughs. “I can’t believe you actually work on Afghanistan policy, that’s so funny! I came clambering in all ‘ _well,_   _actually_ Afghanistan blah blah blah,’ and you probably know ten times more about that shit than I do.”

“Well, I couldn’t very well put whatever his name was – George? – in his place like you did,” Ronan says. “I was just thankful that someone magically appeared out of nowhere and did. He was a rotten date anyway. He kept saying ‘utilize’ when he meant ‘use.’”

Lovett laughs, and almost piles on with an insult of his own towards Ronan’s ex-date. He only just barely stops himself at the last minute; he and Ronan shouldn’t be talking about the time they met. That’s dangerous. Lovett doesn’t want to think too much about why that’s dangerous – he wishes Jon was here – but he needs to at least acknowledge it. And come up with a safer topic of conversation.

They should go back to talking about work, Lovett decides, after a silence that’s only slightly too long. With some stumbling, he gets Ronan to tell him the story of his job interview with Richard Holbrooke, which was a good thing to do, because that story turns out to be hilarious. It’s also a little hilarious how Ronan manages to sound like he’s reading a script focus-tested on college professors even when he’s drunkenly telling a funny story at a party. That observation is  _almost_ funny enough for Lovett to point it out in an attempt to get the Ronan laugh that he’s been craving for a while now, but again, he holds back. And he hates himself a little for holding back, for what it says about him that he feels like he needs to. He _really_ wishes Jon was here.

If Lovett and Ronan hadn’t met at that bar, if Ronan hadn’t looked Lovett up and down with naked interest, if instead Tommy had brought him home one day – “This is my boyfriend, Ronan.” – then it might have snuck up on Lovett. He might have been far into it, then, volleying witticisms back and forth, before he would have realized: we’re flirting. As it is, there’s no use for Lovett to try to convince himself that he hasn’t noticed what’s going on. He’s all too aware of how a certain teasing softness sneaks into his words, how he spurs his racing brain on to come up with something clever even quicker than he usually does, how he throws his head back laughing, baring his throat in a veiled invitation. And even through the haze of alcohol, Lovett worries that the fact that he  _knows_  that he’s doing it just adds an element of self-consciousness to his performance that only increases its allure.  _Drat._

And if Lovett were to stop holding back entirely… He can almost  _taste_ how exhilarating it would be to get to verbally spar with someone who could really keep up with him, someone whose cleverness takes the same shape as his own. And really, Lovett feels more guilty about  _that_  than he does about the garden-variety flirting. Him finding Ronan hot has nothing to do with what he and Jon share, but  _this_ … It’s not that Jon doesn’t do banter; he does, vacillating between the roles of straight man and cheerleader when Lovett gets going on a weird tangent. But Jon never keeps up for as long as Lovett would love him to. And Ronan could, Lovett’s sure of it.  _Fuck._

Lovett needs to come up with something new to say soon, to stop his inner conflict from seeping out through his skin. Thinking about Jon leads to Lovett telling Ronan the story of how he got  _his_  job. It is no ‘Richard Holbrooke interviewed me while taking a shower,’ but Lovett’s a good storyteller, and his talk about cardboard Hillary cutouts and bus-based speechwriting finally gets him that Ronan-laugh that he’s been vying for. Victory!

Lovett joins in Ronan’s laughter just because he likes to laugh. _This is nice_ , he thinks. The cushy kitchen bench they’re sharing is really quite comfortable – all kitchen furniture should come with fluffy cushions, in Lovett’s slightly drunk opinion. Also, the party noise has somehow faded into a pleasant backdrop. Also, Ronan is very pretty.  _…wait._

Lovett sits up straighter, so he’s no longer leaning as much into Ronan’s space as he’s apparently been doing. (When did that happen? Lovett had thought he’d been keeping himself  _decently_  in check, at least…) Almost as if in response, Ronan stands up completely. Torn between hope and dread (both emotions just as fit to make him feel guilty), Lovett wonders if Ronan’s about to leave the room, but then he just goes over to the sink and pours them each a glass of water.  _That’s very thoughtful of him._

“So, is this where you want to be?” Ronan asks when he gets back to the table, handing Lovett his glass. “Working in the White House, I mean.”

“Yeah,” Lovett says, “For now, at least. I mean, I’m a  _presidential speechwriter_ , how cool is that? But, well… I have some California dreaming in my pipeline, to be honest. Jon and I have been talking about leaving together at some point, maybe. It’s a work in progress, but I think I can convince him to turn his writing talent to scripts instead of speeches. And he has more or less promised we’ll get a dog once we work less fucking ridiculous hours.”

Ronan’s suddenly smiling broadly, and Lovett worries he’s being laughed at. “What?” he asks, a little harsh.

“Nothing,” Ronan says, smiling even wider. “Just… you look very happy when you talk about taking your boyfriend to Hollywood.”

That makes Lovett smile too. “I am,” he says. It feels good to remember that, with Ronan’s cobalt eyes on him.

Lovett’s so disarmed by this exchange that he forgets  _even more_ about his self-imposed rule that they’re only supposed to be talking about work, and asks “By the way, how did you and Tommy meet?” Oops.

Ronan’s grin turns rueful. “An app, I am sorry to say. Terribly unromantic. But convenient, especially in D.C.. Tommy contacted me, and I was under the impression that it was just going to be about, aah, getting our respective physical needs met…” Ronan falters, blushing at his own really pretty circumspect mention of sex. (It’s the first time that Lovett has seen him blush. It’s delightful.) “Anyway,” Ronan continues with a cough, “Tommy is always the gentleman, so the first time we met up he took me out to wine and dine me. And later that night we happened across Michael and Sandra, and Tommy introduced me to them as his ‘date’…”

“Of course he did, the old fogy,” Lovett chimes in, endeared. “And then you were stuck with each other,” he adds, joking.

Ronan quirks an eyebrow. “And then we were stuck with each other,” he echoes, pensive. “It is not very romantic, I know.”

“You keep saying that,” Lovett points out. “Do you wish it was? More romantic?”

For a moment Ronan looks taken aback. Then he shrugs. “It is what it is. We lead busy lives, so something non-exclusive and maybe, frankly, a little non-romantic makes sense. And, well… Tommy ‘doesn’t wanna tie me down.’”

Before he can stop himself, Lovett snorts disdainfully; that line must have sounded just as trite when Tommy actually used it.

Ronan chuckles. “You think that is bullshit.”

No point denying it. “It is. That’s up there with, like, ‘its not you, it’s me’!”

Ronan shakes his head a little. “Yeah, well, there’s that. Still. I like Tommy a lot, but I am not sure this relationship has any staying power anyway.”

“Maybe your relationship would have more staying power if you actually focused on it,” Lovett counters, poking at things he shouldn’t be poking at.

Ronan pulls a face, and Lovett thinks he might have crossed a line. It’s treacherous, talking to Ronan; Lovett feels like they’ve known each other for ages, and has to remind himself that this is actually the first time they have a real conversation.

After a beat, Ronan wryly asks, “You don’t pull any punches, do you?” He doesn’t sound genuinely mad, though. “Yeah,” he goes on, “maybe it  _would_  be a better idea for me and Vietor to go full monogamy, shacking up together and getting a dog. Or maybe we’d both regret it. Besides, Tommy is still all h-” Ronan falls  _abruptly_  silent.

In the sudden quiet, the sounds from the party start filtering into the kitchen – it seems that someone actually has turned on SingStar at last, Lovett notes absently. He’s more focused on the sound of the waterfall that is suddenly thundering through his head. He  _has_ to know what that slip up was about, even as he strongly suspects that he won’t like the answer.

“Tommy’s still what?” Lovett asks, before Ronan has time to recover and move on.

Ronan looks away, but Lovett doesn’t have to come up with a new line of attack, because soon enough he turns back to Lovett again, smiling ruefully. “You’re too damn easy to talk to, you know that?”

Lovett’s more used to getting ‘You never shut up, do you?’s, and he can’t deny that he’s flattered now. It’s tempting to ride that emotion, egged on by the warmth of the alcohol spreading from his gut and the faint smell of cologne emanating from Ronan. But, no, he won’t let himself get derailed, here. “What where you gonna say?” he asks, dogged.

Ronan looks back up at Lovett, and for a moment their eyes lock. Then Ronan swallows and sets his jaw (which makes his full mouth do something very attractive that Lovett will have to file away for later). When he speaks there’s a defiance in his voice, a certain tone of ‘you forced my hand.’

“I was gonna say, ‘Besides, Tommy is still all hung up on Favreau, anyway.’”


	3. Solve for Ex

**Tommy, the next evening**  

Tommy stands outside Jon’s apartment door, for the second time in a little more than a month. Trepidation shakes his hands, makes Lovett’s keys jingle in his grip. Should he just unlock the door and enter, or should he knock first, see if Jon comes to open it for him? Maybe he should have sent a text on the way here? …actually, maybe he should just leave? What does he even want to accomplish here?

If Tommy had known he would end the night with a check-in on a heartbroken Jon, he wouldn’t have had that drink, back at the bar that he had dragged Lovett along to in an attempt to try to get him to spill on what it was he was so upset about. On the other hand, without that drink, he might not have had the nerve to come here at all. And now that he’s come this far, he might as well let the liquid courage push him over the finish line.

Tommy sticks the key in the lock, turns it around; the door’s unlocked now. He grabs the door knob, takes a deep breath.  _It’s just Jon._ Tommy opens the door.

“Lovett?” Jon’s voice rings out – from the kitchen, Tommy thinks. Tommy’s heart breaks for how hopeful it sounds. He clears his throat.

“No, it’s me,” he yells back. “Uh, Tommy.”

_“Tommy!?”_

Tommy reaches the kitchen.

“I thought you were Lovett,” Jon says, hunched over his tiny kitchen table and his glass of – Absolut Vodka, probably, unless his taste in clear spirits has changed in the last year. Tommy highly doubts that it’s water, anyway.

“Yeah, I know,” Tommy says, wishing he actually _was_ Lovett, come to un-break up with Jon. “I’m sorry. He wanted me to check on you.” Tommy shakes the keys, still in his hand. “Gave me his keys.”

Jon looks up at the sound. He looks terrible, eyes red from alcohol and tears, hair a complete mess. Tommy swallows against a sudden urge to cry himself.  _I did this to him, once_ , he thinks, hating himself. He didn’t get to see Jon heartbroken, then. If he had, he thinks now, he wouldn’t have been able to live with himself.

“I’m fine,” Jon insists. A reflex, Tommy thinks; that’s what you say to the person who comes to check on you when you’re drinking alone after getting dumped.

“Good,” Tommy says, carefully, even with all evidence to the contrary. Should he reach out to touch Jon, pat him on the back? He puts the keys into his pocket, but before he has time to make a move, Jon pushes his chair away from the table, turns around so he’s facing Tommy more fully.

“What did Lovett tell you?” he asks, guarded. Guarded doesn’t suit him. Tommy would have expected him to be wearing his recently broken heart on his sleeve.

“Uh…”

Lovett said a lot of different things when he and Tommy talked earlier, much of it barely comprehensible. At first, when Lovett whirled into 1309 like a curly-haired storm cloud, it had been impossible for Tommy to get a single word out of his tightly shut lips about what the hell was going on. Later, however, at the bar that Tommy managed to cajole him to, Lovett had rambled freely about Jon being “a hypocrite” and that it was only fair for him to “get a taste of his own medicine” and also that Tommy was “the last person I should be talking to about this.” Then he’d done a complete 180, and suddenly started feeling guilty and worried, ending with him practically begging Tommy to take Lovett’s keys and go to check on Jon.

Tommy doesn’t even know how to begin to sum up all of that for Jon. Thankfully, he doesn’t have to, because now Jon speaks again.

“I can’t believe it’s over,” he gulps, breaking down into sobs again. “I l-love him.”

“Hey, _shhh_ , I know,” Tommy murmurs, hardly aware of what he’s saying. He kneels down in front of Jon, takes his hands in his. “It’ll be okay.”

A few moments pass, Jon crying softly and Tommy squeezing his hands, at a loss at what to do. Would Jon appreciate a hug from Tommy right now? Tommy doesn’t know, so he stays put.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Jon hiccups at last.

Tommy relaxes with relief, which makes him realize how tense he’d been. Jon wants him here.  _Thank God_.

They look at each other. Tommy’s heart flutters inconveniently. Then, unexpectedly, Jon gives a shrill chuckle.

“God, I love the shapes your face makes,” he mumbles. “You look so  _concerned_.”

Tommy  _is_  concerned. He lets go of Jon’s hands and stands back up. “Hey, how ‘bout a glass of water to go with that vodka of yours?” he asks. “Oh, and when did you last eat?”

Jon groans. “I forgot about your mothering,” he complains to Tommy’s back, as Tommy rummages through his fridge on the hunt for something he can fix up quickly.

Tommy finds a carton of eggs and turns back towards Jon, who, it turns out, is refilling his glass. Ah, so definitely vodka, then. “I’m gonna boil these, okay?” Tommy says, opting not to mention the alcohol.

Jon rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t protest.

Once the water starts boiling, Tommy sets a timer and grabs two glasses from a cupboard (Jon still keeps his drinking glasses right above the sink, just like he insisted they do at the Pad). When he sets a glass of water down in front of Jon, Jon rolls his eyes again.

“I’ll drink that if you’ll have some of this,” he says, petulant, and raises his vodka glass in a toasting motion.

Tommy does not think another drink would be a good idea. Straight vodka  _definitely_ wouldn’t.

“I’ll grab a beer,” he offers, as a compromise.

“Sure,” Jon shrugs.

Tommy digs his key chain out of his pocket to get at his bottle opener, so he doesn’t have to rummage through all of Jon’s drawers, and goes back to the fridge to take out a bottle of Sam Adams. Then he might as well make sure that the eggs haven’t cracked in their pot, so he goes over to the stove. As he has his back on Jon, Jon mumbles something.

“What was that?” Tommy asks, stirring the eggs around with a spoon (which probably does nothing, but makes him feel like he’s cooking).

“He called me a ‘tongue-sticking-out-emoji come to life,’” Jon repeats.

Tommy can’t stop a startled snerk from slipping out. “What, when you fought?” he asks, trying to keep his voice neutral.

Jon turns around in his chair and glares at him. “No, dipshit, not when we fought,” he says, with the first hint of a smile that Tommy’s seen since he arrived. “I just remembered it, is all.” Jon turns back towards the table and briefly presses his face into his upper arm, suppressing a sob. “That was one of his, like, ways of saying ‘I love you’…”

Tommy, too, has been on the receiving end of some strange epithets from Lovett – on one memorable occasion he called Tommy “a Chippendale-but-not-like-the-dancers-like-the-antique-chairs,” for example – but of course they’d carry a different weight when directed at someone that Lovett’s in love with. Tommy stares down into the pot, feeling uncomfortable. He can’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t either be overstepping or fucking useless. “So uh…” he begins, with no idea of where he’s going, “you came out to your parents, huh?”

 _Where the fuck did that come from?_ Sure, when they were still dating Tommy had been bothered by how Jon kept referring to Tommy as his ‘friend’ when speaking to his mom and dad, even while he and Tommy were planning to move in together, but he had thought he was over that by now. It makes no sense for him to still be resentful about it, anyway.

Jon looks up at Tommy like he, too, is wondering where the fuck that came from. “Uh, yeah,” he says.

Tommy mentally kicks himself. “Good for you,” he offers weakly.

Jon shrugs. “Kinda all for nothing now, though, isn’t it?”

“Don’t say that,” Tommy counters.

Jon shoots him a weird look. “They know about us too, now, by the way,” he says slowly. “My parents.”

“Oh?”

Tommy’s just about to ask some follow-up questions to this startling revelation, when the egg timer goes off. Tommy gets their food in order and returns to the table. He gives Jon three eggs, and keeps two for himself. Then he gets to watch in fond concern as Jon absolutely _wolfs_ down his first two eggs. Halfway into his third, which he eats at a more reasonable pace, Jon finally looks up and meets Tommy’s gaze. He smiles a concession that he might indeed have been a little hungry, and the smile goes straight to Tommy’s heart.

“So, you told Lillian and Mark about… you and me?” Tommy prompts, shaking it off. He can’t tell if it helps for Jon to talk right now, but that is what  _he_ would want if their roles were reversed. In the absence of any viable other plan, this is what he’s going with. Plus, he’s dying to know the answer to his question.

“Yeah…” Jon says. “I kinda  _had_  to tell them. They did the math of when we stopped… hanging out… and when I started dating Lovett, but the answer they came up with was that you must have had some kind of homophobic freak out over me getting together with a man, so, well, I had to set them straight. So to speak.”

Tommy’s oddly touched at the thought of Jon defending Tommy’s honor to his parents. He takes a bite of his egg to hide it. “And they were fine about it?” he asks. “I mean, you being, you know, bi.”

Jon gives a little half-shrug. “They weren’t thrilled. But they’re trying. Mom’s even started asking when Lo and I are gonna…” Jon falls quiet, choking on a sob, but Tommy’s brain supplies the rest of the sentence: ‘when Lo and I are gonna  _get married_.’

Tommy doesn’t know what to say to that.

Jon grabs one of his drinking glasses – the water one, thank God! – and takes a big gulp. “So, err,” he croaks, hoarse from crying. “Um, how are things with you and Ronan?”

Is Jon trying to make small talk? Ask something thoughtful? Again, Tommy feels oddly touched. He also has no idea how to answer the question. He and Ronan kinda fell into dating, but it’s been good. Tommy has been thinking recently that it could be _really good_ , with time. Ronan is great, and they have a good dynamic going. There’s potential. But Tommy has  _Jon_ in front of him right here, right now, and Jon is… Jon. They’re beyond ‘potential’; they’re the real deal. Tommy still can’t imagine living his life without Jon, even as he’s been doing it for almost a year, now; it’s been like missing a limb. Tommy could  _easily_ imagine life without Ronan, even if it would be a little less interesting, hold a little less clarity.

“I can’t complain,” Tommy says at last, a beat or two too late. The words feel damning, especially when speaking to Jon, who’s always attuned to the exact meanings,  _and_ all possible implications, of any and all words and phrases.

And indeed, Jon  _does_ give him a calculating look now, even through his tears. “What did Lovett tell you?” he asks again.

Tommy shrugs, the repeated question making  _him_ guarded, now. “He said you had a fight, and that, uh… that I might have come up as a topic of conversation. And…” Tommy pauses, unsure of how to go on.

Jon looks out of the window behind Tommy for a moment, then he sighs and meets Tommy’s gaze again. “Did he mention Ronan?” he asks, something weirdly businesslike in his voice.

“No?”  _Ronan?_

“Oh.” Jon takes a deep breath. “Well, I guess you deserve to know this as much as I do,” he sighs. “Apparently Lovett didn’t stop flirting with Ronan after that first time. And apparently Ronan told him that you, errm… that you’re still hung up on me.”

 _What!?_  Ronan has  _no_  business talking about Tommy like that with Lovett – or with anyone! And  _Lovett_ … Tommy had thought it was just about his own history with Jon when Lovett had been so tight-lipped about  _what_ exactly the fight that lead to him breaking up with Jon had been about. But apparently not. Tommy unconsciously presses his fingernails into his thigh, hard, as he tries to remember exactly what Lovett had said as Tommy was trying to comfort him, get him to talk about what had happened between him and Jon.

“Yeah, I was angry too,” Jon says softly, and Tommy crashes back into the here and now. “But then he… well, he pointed out that I was kinda being a hypocrite, if I… that is… Well, he was all ‘Is there maybe a reason for you to be jealous of Ronan? Yes. Could I see myself falling for him? Yes. But you’ll note that I’ve not been secretly pining over him for ten months!’”

Tommy can perfectly hear all that in Lovett’s ranting voice, and he gets an irrational urge to smile. Then, that last sentence really hits him. Hits him like a  _horse’s kick_. Tommy’s eyes fly to Jon’s face. Jon rarely blushes hard enough for it to be clearly visible – basically  _never_ compared to Tommy, anyway – but he does now, splotches of wine-red spreading over his exhausted features.

“I… Jon, _have_  you been…?” Tommy coughs.

Jon meets his eyes, and slowly reaches out across the tiny kitchen table to grab Tommy’s hand. “Are  _you_ ‘still hung up on’ me?” he counters.

Tommy looks down at their intertwined fingers. This feels  _so right_. But Jon’s sad and drunk and if Tommy lets this go on he’ll be taking advantage. Especially since he’s not sure that Lovett is as entirely out of the picture as both Jon and Lovett himself seem to think. Tommy gently extricates himself from Jon’s grip.

“Time for bed,” he says, getting up from his chair.

When Tommy starts to move past the table, Jon grabs his arm and looks up at him with those puppy-dog eyes of his.

“Stay.”

 

**Lovett, some time earlier**

Lovett should have left the bar when Tommy did. He said he was going to, but then the thought of Tommy  _actually_ going over to Jon’s place really caught up with him, and he needed another drink. Lovett’s on his third drink since he said that, now, and he’s starting to get… ideas. Every time that he thinks about Jon and Tommy together, now, ice starts spreading from his guts and out into his fingertips, and he has to  _do_  something, anything.

Lovett  _should_  go home, beg a sleeping pill or two from Mike, and go to bed. Maybe call Spencer for some sympathy from the West Coast.  _Or_  he could stay at the bar and flirt with a stranger. There’s nothing stopping him now, is there? This isn’t a gay bar – it’s just the most convenient bar to ‘go out for a drink’ to when you live at 1309 – but there’s a man over by the window who’s been throwing Lovett looks ever since Tommy left without him. Lovett turns towards him in his seat and gives him a long, assessing look. The guy smiles, dips his head in a shy-or-affecting-shyness nod. He’s pretty cute: longish hair, a button nose. Absolutely nothing compared to Jon, but that’s just something Lovett will have to learn to live with, isn’t it? And to be honest, the dude being so different from Jon is definitely part of the appeal right now.

Restlessness quaking through him, Lovett extricates himself from his corner booth. He walks over to the guy, almost completely steady-like. “Hi, I’m Joe,” he says, holding out his hand. “Is this seat taken?”

The guy shakes Lovett’s hand with exaggerated formality and a humorous glint in his eye. “Please, I’d love some company,” he says, drawing out the chair next to him for Lovett. “I’m Matt. Do you need another drink?”

Lovett accepts the offer more because it’s an intrinsic part of the flirting game than because he thinks that his blood needs a higher alcohol content right now, and Matt –  _Matt, Matt, Matt, gotta remember the name_ – goes up to the bar to order for them, leaving Lovett to contemplate what the hell he’s doing. He seriously considers sneaking out while Matt has his back turned on him, but there’s that thing again where he tries to be less of a quitter. Lovett quit on his whole relationship with Jon today, so he’s probably in the red on that count.

Matt?? Yes, Matt, comes back with two glasses of Rum and Coke and the question, “So what do you do, Joe?”

“I’m a lawyer,” Lovett says, picking the job he would have thought he’d have by now. Then, inspiration strikes. “But right now I actually work at the State Department.”

“Oooh, sounds interesting,” Matt says, raising his eyebrows and leaning in towards Lovett. “What does that entail?”

“Mmm, I work on Afghanistan policy, mostly,” Lovett says. “But I can’t tell you much about it, sadly. They keep us on a pretty tight leash. And gagged.”

“Interesting job for a lawyer,” Matt says, sounding a little skeptical and not going along with Lovett’s innuendo.

“Yeah, I think me getting that opportunity has more to do with the work I used to do in Africa for the UN,” Lovett supplies.

Matt’s eyebrows rise further, and now he leans _back_  instead.

“What do  _you_ do?” Lovett throws out, then, trying to keep him engaged. He licks his straw for good measure.

“I’m a statistical analyst at Harris and Jones Insurance Inc.,” Matt says. “Pretty boring compared to  _your_ job, obviously, but…”

Lovett zones out as Matt start droning on about risks, and premiums, and the importance of life insurance. What an utterly boring subject. Especially compared to everything that Lovett’s imagination has to say about what Jon and Tommy might be doing together right now.  _Fuck_.

“Don’t contact me unless it’s about work! Or to tell me that you’re 100% over Tommy!” Lovett had yelled as he stormed out of Jon’s apartment, slamming the door in Jon’s face. And then he fucking  _threw Tommy at him_. Unbelievable! What kind of fucking idiot…?

“Are you listening to me?” Matt asks, playfully offended.

“Sorry, I was thinking about Kandahar,” Lovett says, trying to keep any emotions out of his voice.

He must succeed at sounding un-heartbroken, because Matt laughs. Lovett is starting to suspect that he isn’t so much buying Lovett’s fantasy, as going along with it just to get some dick. Pathetic.

“Actually, I don’t work at State,” Lovett admits, already bored with his little game. He colors his voice with rueful admission, before turning it around and adding, “In fact, I’m a speechwriter at the White House. Like Toby Ziegler.”

Matt looks  _way_  more skeptical now than he ever did before, and, ridiculously, that hurts Lovett’s pride. Lovett takes out his iPhone, googles himself. “Here, look,” he says, holding the phone up to Matt’s face. “That’s me. That’s the president. Oh, and my real name is Jonathan Lovett, by the way.”

“Oookay,” Matt says slowly, more freaked out than skeptical, now. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but I don’t think I want to play along.”

Lovett watches his flirt walk away, not feeling very remorseful. Then he notices that he still has his phone in his hand. He lights up the screen and sees his own face smiling up at him. And next to him stands Jon, because Jon’s right next to Lovett on practically all official photos. Pete Souza always calls them ‘the lovebirds.’ In this particular picture, Jon has his arm around Lovett’s shoulders and they’re both grinning like they just won the lottery. Lovett never used to smile like that in pictures before Jon.

Lovett clicks out of Safari, and without letting himself think he opens up the messaging app instead, clicks through his contacts to a number he’s never contacted before. Everybody in the extended 1309 crew has everybody else’s contact information out of convenience, and Lovett might not have thought that he’d ever use Ronan’s number, but… why the fuck not? Why the fuck not anything at this point?

_‘I just pretended to ve you when flirting with a guy..... he didnt think your lifw was realistic’_

Lovett clicks ‘send’ before he has time to chicken out. When he reads through what he’s written, he first winces at the typos, and then…  _Oh, shit, that could be clearer._

_‘Uh, I didn’t pretend to be YOU exactly,’_ _he clarifies._ _‘I pretended to be someone named Joe who jst happened to be a lot like you.’_

A few second passes without any reply.  _‘Also i brke up with Jon,’_ Lovett adds. And then, after further silence,  _‘Also I tjink I have a crush on you’_

The seconds without a reply turn into minutes, and Lovett’s on the verge of actually going home and begging for those sleeping pills when his phone finally ‘wyooms’ that he’s gotten a new text.

_‘Slow down, Buster,’_ _Ronan writes._ _‘I am flattered at this sudden attention, but this hardly seems like the best way to have this conversation. Especially as you – forgive me – do not seem entirely sober.’_

_‘“Flattered,”’ Lovett writes back, heart drumming in his chest. ‘Oh dont deny that youre more than just “flattered.”’_

Lovett hardly has to wait a moment before Ronan’s next reply pops up on his screen.

_‘I will not deny it, then. But I still do not think texting is a particularly well-suited medium for a talk like this, Jonathan.’_

It’s hard to read tone over text, but Lovett definitely thinks that reply counts as flirting. And now it’s Ronan’s turn to send two texts in a row, because he soon follows up with, _‘And surely you understand that something like this isn’t something that I can throw myself into without having a conversation with Tommy first.’_

‘Ditch Vietor, then,’ Lovett wants to write, but he doesn’t. Tommy’s been a good friend to him tonight, and even though Lovett feels slightly furious when he thinks about him, the  _real_ target of that fury is actually Jon. (And maybe also Lovett himself, but it feels better to aim it at his as-of-today ex-boyfriend.)

Lovett takes his time, trying to come up with something else to write, but then his phone ‘wyooms’ again. This time, Ronan’s tone is  _markedly_ different.

_‘Lovett. Do you know anything about Tommy being at Favreau’s place?’_

**Tommy, right about then**

Of course Tommy stays. He  _has_ never been able to say no to Jon, after all.

But at least Tommy’s not in Jon’s bed right now. At least he isn’t fucking up this fragile little sprig of rekindled friendship between them. Instead, Tommy lies awake on Jon’s old couch, his eyes shut but sleep elusive, the shape of the couch pillows familiar beneath him. He’s crashed on this good ol’ couch so many times before; it feels like there should be a Tommy-shaped grove in it.

Tommy also has… other memories from this couch, but he’s trying not to think about those too much. _What a fucking day_ , Tommy thinks instead. Normally, this is when Tommy would text Ronan, but…  _Fuck. Ronan!_

Tommy opens his eyes, suddenly overrun with guilt. He’s just… completely forgotten about his boyfriend for like an hour. He fumbles for his private phone on the coffee-table and winces at the light from the screen once he finds it. He unlocks it, and then it takes him almost ten minutes to compose a message.

_‘I’m sleeping at Favreau’s place tonight. I realize we’ll probably have to talk about that. I probably should have told you before I got here, really. I’m sorry. Sleep tight. xx’_

Tommy sends the text, then he sets his phone to silent and goes back to not sleeping.

\---

Apparently, Tommy falls asleep after all, because he’s awakened by the soft footfalls of Jon’s bare feet, stepping into the living-room. Tommy’s disoriented at first, tensing up on the couch. He thinks that Jon’s maybe just going to the bathroom, but then Jon is leaning over him, lightly shaking his shoulder.

Tommy opens his eyes, Jon’s fingers burning through the sleep shirt he’s lent to Tommy. Jon looks utterly unsurprised at finding Tommy awake. “Come to bed, Tom,” he says, like it’s that simple.

And right now, in the middle of the night, the humid D.C. air wafting in through the window, it  _is_ that simple. Tommy once told Jon that he would follow him anywhere, and those words still stand.

“I’ve sobered up now, so you don’t have to worry about whatever your hang-up was before,” Jon adds, the ghost of a bitter smile on his lips.

Bitterness doesn’t suit Jon any more than being guarded did. Tommy wants to kiss it all away. He gets up from the couch, pulls Jon’s sleep-warm body into his, breathes him in. Jon wraps his arms around Tommy’s waist. This probably isn’t gonna end anywhere good, but right now Tommy doesn’t give a fuck, not with Jon pressed against him.

Jon sighs into Tommy’s shoulder, relaxing a fraction. “Tommy,” he whispers.

Tommy lifts a hand to Jon’s face, gently tilts it up towards his own. Jon’s eyes are dark in the dark room, locked on Tommy’s, his mouth slightly open. Tommy feels fucking  _reverent_. He leans his forehead against Jon’s, too overwhelmed to actually kiss him. After a moment of just standing like that, Jon grabs Tommy’s hand, leads him back to his bedroom.

“We can just sleep,” Jon says when they get there.

Tommy laughs, the freest laugh he’s laughed in months.

“I mean it,” Jon protests, but soon he’s laughing too. It’s Tommy’s favorite sound in the world.

Tommy lets himself fall back on Jon’s new, lush bed, a far cry from the creaky frame they’d shared in Chicago. After a moment, Jon gingerly sits down beside him, and Tommy traces a finger up the seam of Jon’s pajama pants, gets his hand under Jon’s worn t-shirt, onto his bare skin. Jon shudders and lies back on the bed next to Tommy, closing his eyes. Tommy sits up and straddles Jon’s waist, pushes Jon’s shirt up, really gets his hands on him. There’s still reverence in Tommy’s palms, in his fingers. It’s like he’s touching something holy; he didn’t think he’d ever get to do this again. He leans down to smell Jon, where his neck meets his shoulder.

If this was anybody other than Jon, Tommy would be embarrassed by the way he’s acting, but Jon deserves it. Jon deserves everything. “Jon,” Tommy says; a lone, broken syllable that makes Jon’s eyes snap open.

“Tommy,” he says back, completely present, suddenly, like he wasn’t a moment ago, even though Tommy hadn’t noticed the lack.

“Oh, fuck,” Tommy says. “We’re really doing this.”

Jon just looks at him, doesn’t say “We could stop,” just lets Tommy decide to go on, lets him lean down and get his lips on Jon’s bared sternum, lick the salty skin and once again breathe in the scent that is Jon and nothing else; Jon’s skin is the only thing in the world that smells like this. Tommy takes Jon’s shirt off entirely and scrapes his teeth along Jon’s collarbone. Jon breathes a little “mmm,” gets his fingers in Tommy’s hair. Tommy leans back into the touch, until Jon’s hands travel lower, gripping at Tommy’s shirt before pulling it off.

Tommy’s just in his boxers now, and he flips them over so he’s on his back and Jon’s above him. Jon immediately leans down, pressing his bare torso against Tommy’s, just like Tommy knew he would, when given the chance. It’s a relief to realize that he still knows Jon’s body, his reactions.

But apparently he doesn’t know all there is to know about Jon anymore; when Tommy runs his hands up and down Jon’s sinuous back, Jon puts his mouth close to Tommy’s ear. “Use your nails,” he whispers.

That’s new. Tommy complies, imagining his fingers tracing lines scratched onto Jon’s skin by Lovett. The fantasy is disturbingly hot, and Tommy pushes that fact away to deal with later.

Tommy has learned some new tricks too. Ronan is nothing if not extremely curious about _absolutely everything_ , which has resulted in him having a lot of theoretical knowledge about potential bedroom activities, and he’s always happy to convert that theoretical knowledge into practical experience.

(“Do you sit around just googling kinky stuff?” Tommy asked him once.

“I like doing research,” had come Ronan’s prim reply.)

Tommy flips through his catalogue of ‘kinky stuff,’ and makes an educated guess at what Jon might like. Then he flips them again, and grabs both of Jon’s wrists in one of his hands as they go, holds them up against the headboard, so that Jon’s long arms frame his beloved face.

“Is this okay?” Tommy whispers, leaning down over Jon.

Jon stares up at Tommy with his wide, dark eyes. He looks just as full of wonder at what’s happening as Tommy is. Jon nods, three quick little dips of his head in time with his shallow breathing. Tommy gets off him, so he’ll be able to keep his fingers around Jon’s wrists while doing… other things too. He runs his free hand down Jon’s chest, nails out, and Jon arches his back  _beautifully_. (Tommy wishes he’d tagged along to that stupid life drawing class at Kenyon that he relentlessly mocked his buddies for taking, just so that he could capture this specific moment on paper.)

When Tommy’s fingers reach the waistline of Jon’s pajama pants, he hesitates for a moment – touching Jon feels so right, so natural, but there’s still a trace of… what? Shyness? Tommy breathes through whatever it is, and sticks his hand down Jon’s pants, scratching at his sensitive thighs and skimming over his hardening dick. Tommy’s hard in his boxers, too.

“What do you want?” Tommy asks, breathless.

Jon moans. He looks into Tommy’s eyes as he visibly forces himself back into a headspace where he can speak. “I just got dumped, I think I deserve to get fucked,” he says, at last, the words more careless than his voice, but still.

Tommy laughs, startled, and lets go of Jon’s wrists. “Far be it from me to deny you that silver lining,” he says. “Where do you keep your lube, then?”

\---

Tommy marvels at the easy way Jon opens up on his fingers, and pushes away the thought that this is Lovett’s work. The first time he and Jon did this, Jon had been too eager, ready in mind but not in body; he’d hurt himself on Tommy’s cock, and he hadn’t even complained, after. Just laughed at himself, rueful, and worked from home the day after. Tommy had felt _dismal_ , had refused to do it again for weeks. Well, there might have been other reasons for that, too. The whole ‘gay sex’ thing had still been new and overwhelming, then, for one thing. And then they had tried it the other way around, and Tommy had liked it so much he hadn’t wanted to do anything else for a while, there.

Now, Tommy takes his time, way more than Jon really needs, luxuriating in the smooth slide of his fingers along Jon’s rim. After a few minutes, he starts to just graze his fingertips over Jon’s prostate on every other stroke, and Jon starts mewling and thrashing, pushing up against where Tommy’s other hand is resting, palm down, on his stomach.

“Can I make you come just like this?” Tommy asks, the awe he’s feeling audible in his voice.

“Suck me off first and fuck me after,” Jon demands, sure of what he wants in a way that he’d never been when he and Tommy were together. So sure that Tommy doesn’t protest that Jon always falls asleep after an orgasm; that must have changed.

Tommy does as he told, blowing Jon until Jon tells him to stop. It’s torture to have to move his mouth away from Jon’s dick, so smooth and soft and solid against Tommy’s tongue, but Tommy is not one to go against a direct command. He kept his fingers in Jon’s ass all through the blow-job, but now he slowly ramps up the speed and intensity again, Jon squirming beneath him as Tommy holds him down, with more force than he would have used a year ago; he’s leaning much of his weight down on his arm, resting across Jon’s hips.

Tommy leans down further, to kiss at Jon’s flat stomach, to get Jon’s hand in his hair again, like it was when he blew him. He can feel Jon’s abs working under his lips, holding back the orgasm that Tommy’s building up in him, sliding his fingers in and out through frankly  _wasteful_ amounts of lube; this is a special occasion.

“I’m close, Tom,” Jon gasps suddenly.

The words surprise Tommy, who would have thought that Jon would be unable to form words by now. Jon must have made an effort, because he knows that Tommy likes it when he verbalizes, and Tommy’s touched at the thought of Jon fighting through his sex-tied tongue. Beyond touched, really; Tommy’s far gone into abject adoration.

“Do it,” Tommy grunts back, worked up himself, even though his own dick is as-of-yet untouched. “Come on, Jon, love, come for me.”

Jon does, screaming out wordlessly, his back arching up again, his fingers twisting the sweetest pain into Tommy’s hair. With Tommy’s face so close to his dick, he gets some of Jon’s come on his chin, and Tommy reaches his tongue out to lick at it. Nothing else in the world tastes quite like Jon’s come.

Jon stills under Tommy for a moment as Tommy licks the come off his stomach, his own hand still as well, inside of Jon. Should he pull it out?

“Keep going,” Jon says just then, through a huge, post-orgasmic yawn.

This time, Tommy can’t help doubting him. “Are you sure?” he whispers. “It’s fine if you want to stop.”

Jon opens his eyes – clearly a struggle – and meets Tommy’s. “I’m sure, yeah,” he says. “Come on, Tommy, I want to feel you.”

“Demanding,” Tommy mutters back offhandedly, like he might have done to Ronan.

Jon snorts a soft, sleepy laugh, and as Tommy starts moving his hand inside him again, Jon brings Tommy’s other hand up to his face to nuzzle into it, kiss the palm.

“I like you like this,” Tommy says, because he does. Jon is _lovely_ right now, and a weird wave of thankfulness towards Lovett rushes over Tommy; if it hadn’t been for Lovett, Tommy wouldn’t have gotten to experience this.

Tommy speeds up a little again, twisting his fingers, spreading them a little wider in preparation for his cock, and soon Jon is wide awake again, making noise and clenching on Tommy’s fingers, even as his dick lies spent and soft between his thighs.

“Fuck me now,” Jon says, suddenly. “I need you inside me.”

When Tommy looks up into his face, Jon is staring right at him, color high on his cheeks, his hair in sweaty disarray.

 _I love you_ , Tommy thinks, but he swallows against letting the words slip out aloud.

\---

Jon makes a face when Tommy rolls on a condom, found deep inside Jon’s bedside drawer, but he doesn’t say anything. The last times they did this they’d gone bare, but now Tommy has been fucking around. He’s always been safe, but he can’t be too careful with Jon. And soon enough, Jon’s eyes start to travel away from Tommy’s hand moving on his dick, and up over his abs. Tommy’s stronger than the last time they did this, more muscled – off the campaign trail he can eat well and squeeze in some time at his dismal DC gym – and he absolutely  _basks_ in the unabashed way that Jon is drinking in his body.

With the condom completely on, Tommy leans down over Jon and kisses him again. He cards his fingers through Jon’s damp hair, messing it up further. Then he grabs a pillow from beside Jon’s head, and lifts Jon’s hips to push it in beneath them. Tommy leans down on his forearms so that he can kiss Jon whenever he wants as they get going, and lines himself up against Jon’s ass. “You ready?” he asks, his voice cracking.

Jon nods, shutting his eyes and offering his mouth up for a kiss when Tommy starts to press into him. Jon’s worked so open that he hardly even flinches as Tommy carefully pushes in, but once Tommy’s fully seated he still makes an obscene little noise that Tommy wants to capture in a locket and wear over his heart.

Just when Tommy’s about to start moving, Jon grabs his shoulders. “Wait,” he whispers. “Just feel it. How perfect…” 

Jon falls silent, just panting softly, fingers flexing on Tommy’s shoulders, squeezing down his upper arms. There are tears welling in the corners of Jon’s eyes, little beads of glass glinting in the moonlight from the windows. Tommy shuts his own eyes and just ‘feels it,’ like Jon asked him to. Jon’s tight and hot and vulnerable around him, and with the two of them staying this still, Tommy can feel the pulse of Jon’s heartbeat inside him. Or is it his own? 

The moment stretches out luxuriously, until Jon whimpers, “Now.”

He doesn’t have to ask twice. Tommy pulls away, almost as slowly as when he first entered Jon. When he’s almost fully out, he opens his eyes, looks down on Jon, assessing. He knows Jon’s body; knows what it can take, knows what it wants. Jon knows Tommy, too, knows what he’s gearing up for. Their gazes lock, Jon’s eyes shining with desperate anticipation. He gives the tiniest of nods, and Tommy  _slams_  back in. They both groan.

“Yes,” Jon whines, his voice travelling higher up his register than it ever does outside the bedroom. “Yes.”

Fuck, Tommy missed that voice. He pulls out again, a little faster but still slow enough for the anticipation to build until it’s unbearable, until he  _has_  to –

“Nnngh,” he grunts, filling Jon up again. This is everything. _Perfection._

“You’re perfect,” Tommy breathes. “You’re taking it” – he pulls out, pushes back in – “perfectly.”

“Yeah,” Jon breathes back, too in the moment to be bashful. He clenches around Tommy, sweat breaking out again on his forehead, on his chest. He smells like heaven.

Tommy licks at Jon’s throat, his jaw, and then they kiss, hot and sloppy, as Tommy keeps moving, as Jon moves under him, angling himself so that Tommy hits him just right; mindless, now, in his pursuit of pleasure, his hands loose around Tommy’s upper arms. Tommy picks up the rhythm, taking care to keep each stroke as forceful as the first, concentrating on his breathing like he was running a marathon. He could lose himself in this completely, could die right now and die happy. Having Jon under him, around him, his mouth slack under Tommy’s, his spent dick twitching valiantly against Tommy’s stomach, is enough for Tommy to fully regain his childhood faith, at least for a moment.

Tommy holds back his orgasm as long as he can, even as he can feel it building in his abdomen, pulling at his innards. Tommy grunts with every thrust inside Jon now, and he’s losing the rhythm a little. Jon seamlessly picks up his slack, starts pushing back more, lifting his hips a little from the bed as Tommy’s hips stutter.

“Come on, Tom,” Jon breathes. “Fill me up. Make me yours.”

 _Holy shit_. Tommy manages three more thrusts –  _Make. You. Mine._  – and then he comes, staring down at Jon in wonder. Afterwards, he collapses down onto Jon’s sweaty chest. He wants to lick at its salty wetness, wants to drink Jon up like the chalice at communion, but he just lays there until he feels Jon’s fingers carding through his hair.

“That was... wow,” Jon says.

_Damn right._

Tommy hides his agreement in a laugh into Jon’s collarbone. “‘That was wow,’” he echoes, mocking. “A little trite, don’t you think?”

“I give all my profundity to the president,” Jon promptly counters. And then, like Tommy knew was coming, “Okay, get off me.”

Tommy rolls off, careful with the condom, and catches Jon’s gaze. “Please tell me you won’t regret this tomorrow,” he says, before he can stop himself.

Jon looks away, stares up at the ceiling in the dark. “Can’t we just be in the now?” he asks, sounding a  _lot_ like a sullen Lovett. It’s uncanny.

“We’ll have to talk at some point, Favs.”

Jon sits up, pulls the sheets up to his belly, leans against the headboard, and crosses his arms in front of his bare chest. Tommy regrets saying anything, but he’s in it now. He sits up as well, gingerly puts a hand on Jon’s arm.

“Hey, Jon. This is a mess, but I’m sure we’ll work it out somehow.” As he speaks, Tommy realizes that he actually believes what he’s saying. Talking to Ronan tomorrow is gonna be decidedly  _not fun_ , but Tommy has this bones deep conviction that everything will work out for the best. It’s an unfamiliar feeling.

“Communication professionals,” Jon replies with a weak smile. It’s a callback to an old in-joke from their clumsy attempts at getting together, and how shitty they’d been at telling each other how they felt.

“Hey, see, we figured it out back then!” Tommy says. “And we’re much older and wiser now.” ( _Plus, there are more of us to do the figuring, now_ , he doesn’t add, because he’s not sure if that’ll be more of a help or more of a hindrance; could be too many cooks, could be strength in numbers.)

Jon’s smile widens a little.

“And I…” Tommy begins again, mouth drying with what he’s about to say. He wishes he wasn’t still wearing a soggy condom. “I love you. I’ve always loved you.”  _But so does Lovett_ , he thinks. “But let’s not make any promises tonight,” he says aloud.

Jon’s smile explodes into a gap-toothed supernova, and Tommy responds with a grin that feels a lot like a promise, no matter what he just said.

“Okay, okay,” Jon says. “No promises. But look… I hated doing my own taxes this year, and I hope I won’t have to, again.”

**Author's Note:**

> justlikesomuch's original prompt:
> 
> D.C. era. Favs and Tommy are exes, having been together during the campaign. Now Favs is dating Lovett and Tommy is with Ronan. Lovett and Ronan start to fall in love, leading to all sorts of love quadrangle nonsense, and an eventual Vietreau reunion.
> 
> \---
> 
> Thank you for reading! You can find me on [Tumblr](https://abriefshoutouttosomeminutiae.tumblr.com/), if you want! : )


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